


A Flower in Your Name

by mulberrymelancholy



Category: Natsume Yuujinchou | Natsume's Book of Friends
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Gen, Sort Of, Time Travel, Young Natsume, aged-down natsume, i haven't read the manga, its really just sad, natsume-centric, possible canon divergence, pre-canon fic, so the story might have been explained there already, the other characters only appear briefly, what if natsume went to an orphanage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:00:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,949
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25952599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mulberrymelancholy/pseuds/mulberrymelancholy
Summary: Natsume is thrown back to a time before the Fujiwara's by a yokai who gives him three days to remember their name. He has no friends, no family, and is only just starting to comprehend the other world hiding just below ours.For the Natsume 2020 Summer Big Bang
Comments: 8
Kudos: 33
Collections: Natsume Yuujinchou Bang Summer 2k20





	A Flower in Your Name

**Author's Note:**

> This entire fic spiraled from a single off-hand comment made by Matoba at the start of season four. I loved the idea of writing a young Natsume trying to find his way in an orphanage, especially since I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere except that one episode. I also wanted to explore the idea that his wariness of the yokai wasn't just because they terrorised him, but because of what could happen when he got swept away by their spells. And then I wondered how all of this would tie in if he only started seeing yokai once he was a bit older.

Tomorrow was a tremendous thing.

It was cold and dark and unknown. An abyss that fell off the path of the stable and the good enough and the predictable. It was a promise, of more, of something different. Tomorrow you’re going to a new home. Tomorrow we’ll be leaving. Tomorrow is the funeral. Tomorrow you’ll see more of them. Tomorrow you’ll make another mistake. Tomorrow you’ll hurt someone else.

It’s a fear, a danger that penetrated so deeply into Natsume’s bones that he remembered it instantly when he smelled the old floor boards, heard the creaking stairs, the whispers of the volunteer nurses who were being quiet only as a formality. His roommate had long since woken up, the bed neatly made and tucked away, a faded name carved into the wooden boards behind where he rested his head.

As the old house creaked around him, Natsume breathed deeply and forced himself to relax, to orient himself, to calm the rapid rabbiting of his heart so that he could focus. He listened to the wind outside, breathed in the smell of dust. He remembered how he loved this house, the old, yellow wood that made the structure appear far happier than it truly was, the shoji doors that were thin enough he could see every detail of the shadows moving beyond them, impossible to sneak through, the flickering candles in the hallways that made it easy to blame the forms dancing in his periphery on a trick of the light.

He forced himself to stand up, fold the futon and pack it in a cupboard that would fill it with splinters that evening. He grabbed a small bag from the same shelf and walked to the bathroom quietly, bare feet passing over the floor without a sound. As he stood brushing his teeth in front of the mirror, he forced himself to look at his eyes, at his face. His eyes were still a dark brown, only the faintest ring of amber around his pupils that hinted at something otherworldly, a sight hidden from everyone else. 

Three days. He had three days to remember the name of a yokai while he was stuck in a body that was just beginning to see them.

As he walked back to the bedroom, he passed a girl roughly the age Natsume - the real Natsume who was asleep in the Fugiwara’s house a few hours ago - was supposed to be. She barely noticed him as she stumbled past, still in her work uniform from taking the early morning shift, the dark shadows beneath her sunken eyes reminding him why he was so afraid of this place. It wasn’t the house. It wasn’t even the yokai. It was because this was the only time he’d ever been afraid to _stay_. He was so afraid that he’d end up like that, nothing more than an empty shell trying its best to get by every day, trying to repay a debt that they hadn’t asked for, being forced to grow up years too early. He was afraid to lose the light, the warmth that he still remembered from his parent’s smiles. Their laughter.

Those memories were well and truly gone for Natsume, in his real time, but he knew that this past self still remembered, still clutched so desperately to that picture, without the creases and smudges it had accumulated by the time Natsume pinned it up in the cupboard in the Fujiwara's home. It was all that kept him afloat in the next few months.

He stopped at the chart at the top of the stairs, searching for his name and assigned chore for the day. Briefly, he wondered if he should have been able to read at this point in his life, but decided that someone noticing he was able to read a few years before he was meant to was not the biggest problem he had at the moment.

He only had simple tasks; helping to clean the laundry room and hang up the seemingly endless amount of sheets that the orphanage went through in a week. He was finished by midday, the sun stinging sharply on his neck, but too hidden by the winter clouds to do enough damage to warrant sunscreen.

He walked out into the gardens, another part of the orphanage that made things less terrifying. It was overflowing with flowers; yellows and pinks and reds and the brightest greens as far as the eye could see, even now when the seasons were changing. It was there that he found Mr Yamato, bent over a patch of vivid purple blooms. Even as Natsume’s stomach sank to his feet in dread, he couldn’t fight off the grin at seeing the familiar floppy hat.

“Are you just going to stand there?” Mr Yamato asked, not turning to look. Natsume could hear his grin; the old man had a voice that spoke of a life full of laughter and joy, surrounded perpetually by things that he loved and that made him happy.

“Are the orchids difficult to grow?” Natsume asked eagerly, crouching next to him and staring at the flowers as he carefully inspected each leaf for any sign of infection. His voice sounded foriegn to his ears; high-pitched and excited, nothing like the somber almost-whisper that Natsume was only just starting to grow out of again before he was sent back. The flowers reminded him of Touko; she’d once told him how much she wished she could have a few in her garden, but even her green thumb wasn’t enough to keep them alive for long.

Mr Yamato chuckled. “They only look so nice because I just planted them yesterday,” he said with an exaggerated wink. “They don’t bloom too long out here, but I buy them every year, if I can. Kaori’s favourite, you know."

Natsume felt another smile stretch across his face. “Is Kaori- _san_ going to come see them soon?”

Mr Yamato smiled softly. “I’m sure she sees them, wherever she is now.” He stood up, wincing slightly when his old knees creaked, but brushing away Natsume’s hand when he offered to help, as he always did. He picked up a bucket and walked towards the woods lining the back of the orphanage, assuming that Natsume would follow. Natsume grabbed his own bucket and swung it at his side as he walked. Mr Yamato continued talking, telling a story that he had told many times before, “We met in high school, you know.”

“I remember Yamato- _san_!” the young boy said eagerly.

“Clever boy,” he laughed, reaching over to ruffle Natsume’s hair, and for a moment he could forget about the whispers following them as the trees closed around them. “It was love at first sight for me! She was the only girl who could make that god-awful yellow school dress look like a sunflower. So of course I filled her desk with potting soil two days later.” Natsume laughed loudly, as he always did, and Mr Yamato softly cuffed the back of his head, as he always did. He shook his head, eyes crinkling with a deep smile. “I don’t know how I got lucky enough to marry her.”

They grew quiet after that, Mr Yamato lost in his memories and Natsume lost in the trees. During their walk, Natsume had subconsciously drifted closer to the groundskeeper, and his hand brushed the back of Mr Yamato’s shirt. He kept seeing movement, but there would be nothing there when he turned to look. Mr Yamato brushed a reassuring hand over his head.

“You don’t need to be afraid of the spirits, boy,” he said softly.

Natsume said nothing, but tightened his grip on the shirt.

Mr Yamato stopped in front of a blackberry bush, bending down slightly so that he could look Natsume in the eyes. His face was serious, but his eyes were still smiling - whether it was still left over from the memories of his wife or due to the pure joy the man felt by being outdoors, Natsume would never know - and he relaxed. “The spirits in these woods won’t hurt you so long as you respect them. They’re the people of the trees and the ground - they can tell when you are kind and they will be kind in return.”

Natsume remained quiet as he heard a whisper in his ear, too soft to fully make out the words.

“They’re talking to us,” Mr Yamato said, and Natsume felt a sudden surge of cruel, angry hope that someone understood, that someone could hear and explain and - “Listen to the trees, they’re dancing for us.”

Natsume deflated imperceptibly. Mr Yamato was only talking about the wind whispering through the leaves, after all. He forced himself to smile and take a step back. Mr Yamato wasn’t fooled by the mask, but they carried on walking, deep into the woods where the thickest groundcover could be found.

“Remember to cover the holes, again, Takashi- _kun_ ,” Mr Yamato said as they started filling their buckets with old leaves and dirt that would make the perfect soil cover for the gardens of flowers at the orphanage. “We’re taking part of their home, so we should at least leave it the way we found it.”

Natsume nodded, knowing Mr Yamato wouldn’t be able to see him with his back turned, but he knew the old man trusted him enough to do at least this much. Natsume jumped when a mouse startled from its rest under the pile of leaves he chose to pick up.

Natsume could have sworn he saw a flower growing out of its tail.

The rest of the day was uneventful. After returning to the orphanage and helping spread a thin layer of the mulch they collected over the wildflower patch, Natsume was called back into the house to help wash dishes for dinner that night. He was no closer to discovering the identity of the yokai that had banished him back into the past than he had been that morning.

“ _You stole my name_ ,” the yokai’s voice echoed in his mind as he tried to fall asleep. He remembered trying to tell the spirit that he wasn’t Reiko, that he had the Book of Friends with him and would help in whatever way he could, but they didn’t seem to care. The spirit hadn’t given him an ultimatum, hadn’t explained what would happen if Natsume failed, but he’d spent enough time around yokai to know that it couldn’t be anything good. Especially if they showed as little interest in the Book as this one had.

 _One day down_.

* * *

The next morning came in angrily, stomping its way through the last peaceful night of sleep the young Natsume would have for many years to come. It was a shout, a curse, a roar - someone had come home too late, or something had fallen over and spilled on a carpet - the voices were too loud to hear what they were saying. Natsume groaned and pulled his pillow over his ears, smothering his face into the thin mattress in an effort to block out the sounds and catch a few more minutes of slumber.

Natsume felt a jab in his side and glared at the roommate standing over him. Despite the rude awakening, he stood up and began packing his things away. They both knew that it was better to wake without complaints when the head nurse was in a foul mood.

When he got to the bottom of the stairs, he saw the haggard girl from the previous day, the bags under her eyes impossibly deeper. She was sitting in front of the backdoor to the kitchen, furiously scrubbing at the floor. She must have come in as early as the day before, and knocked over the bucket of dirty laundry water they normally left at the door until the next day. He wordlessly grabbed a spare sponge and knelt beside her, helping to scrub the smell from the soaked welcome mat and between the kitchen tiles. She thanked him just as wordlessly, making room for him to crouch down. They worked in silence for a few minutes, before she covered his hand with hers. “It’s alright, Natsume- _kun_. I’ll be able to finish on my own,” she said softly, tiredly. “You’ll be late for school.”

Natsume didn’t point out that she’d be late for school as well. He knew that she was saving up to move to Tokyo at the first chance she got. He dropped his sponge into the sink nearby and climbed the stairs to fetch his school bag and shoes. 

He was distracted on his way to school - relying on muscle memory to carry him there while he was completely lost in his thoughts. Was the spirit one of the few that could be found at the school? Would he remember its name by going there? He knew he had met a few in the classroom, but he could remember very little about them. They were overshadowed by the sheer amount he met in the orphanage. He stumbled a step, too focused on his unwanted assignment to notice the empty can lying on the sidewalk.

He shouldn’t have noticed the small flash in his periphery, shouldn’t have been intrigued enough to go investigate it. It was nothing more than a mirage, dancing just out of reach of his vision until he reached a corner and it could guide him forward again. The stop and start of the chase frustrated him enough that he forgot school entirely - he knew there was something else he would have to do, but it could wait for the time being.

The flit of yellow led him to the forest, along a road he was sure he had taken many times before. But it looked different, wilder and more overgrown, with branches and roots stretching across the slim path as if to hide it from view entirely. It was only in hindsight that he realised how similar the figure he was chasing was to the spirits lining the path he took yesterday; there until he looked closely enough to confirm that it wasn’t. The whispers spun around his head like the day before too, but they were louder. The excitement was almost palpable in the air, even to the human Natsume.

He found himself deep among the trees, deeper than he had ever been with Mr Yamato. The woods were so thick that the buildings and streets surrounding the small park were blocked out completely, as if he had found his way into an entirely separate world. Still they went deeper. The noises grew louder and the spirits were clearer than they had ever been before.

He came to a clearing - a ring of mushrooms too perfect to be natural, but too organic to be anything man made. He saw a flash of yellow to his right and turned to see a girl smiling at him, wide and bright. She reached out for his hand and and pulled him into the ring.

The atmosphere changed as soon as he stepped into the clearing. The birdsong hushed and the trees whispered, leaves danced and the clouds sighed. It was a watercolour painting; sad and melancholy, the edges blurred and frayed and just-barely-there. The joyous excitement was gone and replaced by one of the most beautiful things Natsume had ever seen. Greens and golds shimmered in his vision, reflected off the clean white masks of the other yokai in the ring. The girl he had followed was across from him, and she smiled when he met her eyes.

He fell into the circle as if it were the natural thing to do. His hands linked with the spirits next to him without a second thought and then Natsume was spinning and flying and he was so free he could taste the magic from the dance on his tongue. Vines tickled his hands and his face. He was so enraptured that he didn’t think to question the strange shape of the people dancing with him; robes with heads of mushrooms and vines instead of true faces.

Later, he realised he couldn’t describe what the magic was - it was too full, too overwhelming to accurately describe what it felt like to be caught in the yokai’s spell.

But it was easy to explain what it wasn’t. It wasn’t an old orphanage with creaking boards and dark shadows. It wasn’t distant relatives with cold and impatient eyes. It wasn’t dark and it wasn’t empty and for the first time in months, it wasn’t sad. His feet would barely touch the ground before he jumped again, a smile of joy and wonder stretched so wide across his face he was almost afraid it would split. He laughed and sang.

He didn’t question it when he heard his parent’s voices sing along.

The girl danced into the center of the ring and the song changed to match her movements. She flitted like a hummingbird, almost hopping more than dancing, across a pattern only she could see. Fast and sharp and so full of energy and life that it bled into the ground below her, bright mushrooms sprouting beneath her feet. She was a butterfly, barely there and then gone again. Natsume wanted to reach out to her, wanted to grasp the warmth that she was spilling at his feet, but the hands gripping his were strong, refusing to let him get so sucked into her thrawl that he broke the circle.

But the magic of the circle was not made for Natsume. It was not made for human boys with clumsy legs that could trip over roots instead of brushing through them.

He fell with a clatter, too mesmerised by the dancing girl and pulled along too fast by the yokai next to him to prevent hooking his foot through a branch. When he looked up, the yokai were gone, the clearing dark and empty and dreadfully foreboding. The sudden silence was eerie, dangerous, and Natsume felt as if hundreds of eyes were staring at his back, glaring at him for interrupting their game. It felt the same as when he asked to join the games at school - judgemental and angry and unforgiving. The silence was oppressive and empty. An absence and a judgement. It told him that he didn’t belong, that he was unwelcome and unwanted.

He pushed himself off the ground, wincing at a sting above his ear. He reached up to touch a small cut, recalling suddenly that it would scar. It would make a small, fine line that he probably would have eventually forgotten completely if Taki hadn’t pointed it out one day and asked him how he got it. Tanuma had been with them, and Natsume remembered how he tilted his head a little bit too close to get a look, how the light fell in his eyes. Natsume had told them that he couldn’t remember.

He had forgotten most of it - the circle itself had been an almost entirely new memory - but he was afraid too. Afraid of the panic and the pain and the terror that would be waiting for him at the other end of this memory. He had known it had something to do with the yokai, could remember the coldness of the sudden quiet. He remembered the fright. He remembered the disaster he would bring once it was over. He clambered to his feet.

Eyes followed him as he sprinted blindly through the forest. The yokai that were hidden earlier stood out starkly, crowding in the shadows of the trees and whispering as his feet slipped across the leaves on the ground.

_“A human boy.”_

_“Why is he here?”_

_“He broke the circle.”_

_“It’s broken now.”_

_“All his fault.”_

_“It’s all his fault.”_

Natsume pressed his hands over his ears to drown them out, but the sounds echoed in his brain, burying themselves deep into his bones.

He fell again, skidding across the ground and scraping his knee. Natsume could feel his young body cry, could feel the pain and frustration and fear at the confusion welling up until it had no place to go but the tears that ran down his cheeks. But Natsume himself felt numb; he knew what was coming, knew how that moment had changed things. The outcome was an inevitable sentence waiting for him at the end of a dark road.

He finally moved when a yokai slipped out of the shadows and reached towards him, it’s pale skin shining sharply in the moonlight. Long nails scraped along Natsume’s arm and he screamed, running with a new terror towards what little light he could make out. Branches and thorns and limbs tore at his skin and clothes, ripping away his breath and all the warmth he felt earlier.

The sight of flashing blue and red lights and a voice calling his name gave him the strength he needed to run the last stretch. He slammed into the legs of a policeman standing at the edge of the tree line, and they nearly fell. The man staggered a step back and looked at Natsume with wide eyes.

“Takashi- _kun_?” he asked in surprise.

Unsurprisingly, Natsume burst into tears once again. He felt strong hands pull him off the officer and then he was enveloped in a warm hug that smelled like coffee and porridge. The head nurse held him close, briefly allowing herself to be warm and kind and comforting. “It’s alright,” she soothed, stroking his hair lightly while he clutched at her gown. “You’re safe now.”

Eventually, Natsume pulled away, wincing lightly at the tear stains left behind, positive that there would be repercussions later. He wiped at his eyes and sniffed, thanking the young nurse when she offered him a tissue. “Where is Yamato- _san_?” he asked.

Both women’s eyes went soft, filling with pity. “It’s alright,” the head nurse said again. “They took him away, so he won’t be able to hurt you again.”

Natsume was confused. “Yamato- _san_ didn’t hurt me.”

She pulled back and looked him in the eyes. “He wasn’t the one who took you?”

“No! It was the spirits!” the young boy cried. Natsume tried to stop what he said next, but he he finally realised that he was a mere spectator sent back to observe and remember, not change the outcome. He hadn’t noticed until then that all this was nothing more than a memory that he was watching play out. He was forced to watch the nurse’s face as she listened to his stories of a girl in a yellow dress and masks with leaves and vines growing from them. He watched her face as she made the connection between his tale and Yamato’s stories and superstitions. He watched as she hardened her heart, as he made things even worse than they were.

By the time the policeman kneeled in front of him, the sun had started rising, the black sky fading into a dark blue as the stars disappeared one by one. “Takashi- _kun_ , I just want to clarify; are you telling us that it wasn’t Yamato- _san_ who took you into the woods? He wasn’t the reason why you were missing so long?”

“No!” Natsume sobbed, tired and drained and confused and dreadfully afraid.

The man put a comforting hand on his shoulder and reached up to brush his tears away. He nodded once and then stood up, turning to the head nurse. “We’ll keep Yamato- _san_ for a while, but it truly doesn’t sound as if he was at fault.”

The nurse scoffed. “You would rather believe that the boy was taken by spirits and fairies?”

“He’s not the first child to get lost in those trees, and he won’t be the last. I can’t be certain what he saw, but he’s probably exhausted,” he said.

The nurse glared, but said nothing else. Once the man had left, she pulled Natsume into the bathroom to shower.

As she scrubbed his skin, Natsume stared blankly at the mirror. His eyes had finally changed, the ring of amber now stretched across his entire iris, as if the brown had never been there to begin. His pupil had narrowed to the vertical slit of a cat. He tilted his head as he wondered for the first time if anyone else could see the strange shape and colour. They were so unique and unusual, but no one he knew had ever commented on them, not even Touko or Taki who were usually quick to notice such things. Could only he see how different they were? Could the yokai? Was the gold a sign that he could see them? Why did Natori and Matoba’s eyes look different, then?

He was led to bed, but despite his mental and physical exhaustion, proper sleep evaded him. The pain and guilt of his young body was compounded by the weight of his memories and new understanding. He curled into himself, burying under the covers in hopes of blocking out the new sounds and sights that invaded his room. New shadows danced across the shoji and voices whispered in the roof above him. He drifted in and out of rest, harshly jolted back into wakefulness by an endless string of nightmares. When he was younger, he dreamed of Mr Yamato being swallowed by a monster with glowing red and blue eyes. Now, Mr Yamato was replaced by Tanuma being grabbed by a disembodied hand, Taki with a giant eye looming over her as she slept, Touko as she fell down the stairs with a yokai lurking behind her, Nishimura and Kitamoto vanishing from their seats as a wave of darkness flowed through the classroom. In each dream, Natsume tried to reach out, to warn them, or to save them, or just to be close to them, but each time, just as he got to the end of the road, two steps away from finally touching them, he fell, the world dropping out beneath his feet and he would wake up shivering in his bed.

It had been so easy, these past few months, to let himself believe that yokai had a place in his life, that there was a chance for him to live in both worlds at once. But it is no small thing if a human boy gets distracted by a world that is not his. His friends and family were in danger in more ways than one and it was all his fault.

* * *

The final day of his visit to the past came quietly, somberly. It was a soft light, playing over Natsume’s open eyes. He had long ago stopped trying to sleep through the nightmares. It was a tail, flickering across his nose, even as he tried to ignore it. He let the sun be his excuse and finally stood up, flinching at the stretch in the scrapes and wounds he had picked up by running through the forest in the dark last night. He brushed the tail out of his face, but ignored the creature’s squeak when he made contact, sending it tumbling to the floor.

He made his way out to the garden almost immediately.

He was hurt, but not surprised, when he caught sight of a truck, Mr Yamato watching as a young man loaded boxes into the back.

“Yamato- _san_?” he asked softly, desperately trying to keep the quiver out of his voice.

The old man wouldn’t meet his eyes. “I’m moving in with my son and his family.”

Natsume hadn’t understood completely what was happening, how things had changed so suddenly. “ _I’m sorry_ ,” he whispered anyway.

But Mr Yamato stayed silent, and they stood next to the wilting orchids until the man called that everything was packed.

Natsume’s hand reached out to grab the back of Mr Yamato’s shirt like he had so many times before, but he hesitated. The warmth and familiarity in the old man’s face was long gone, and the playful comfort that had always hovered in the air between them was gone, leaving nothing but an awkward emptiness in its place.

He was miserable for the rest of the day, barely noticing as the yokai tested the waters, tested the limits of this new human toy that could see and touch them. He climbed back into bed only a few hours after he got out, spiritually and emotionally exhausted. Natsume was glad it was his final night, glad that the trip to the past was over, even if he hadn’t been able to remember the spirit’s name. He had been avoiding the memories of the orphanage for so long that it felt obscene to have them so fresh. He felt as ashamed and guilty as he had when it first happened, sinking easily into the spiral of dark thoughts that had haunted him for the next month of his stay at the orphanage until another strange relative came to pick him up.

As his young body finally gave into the exhaustion, Natsume suddenly recalled the eyes of the spirit that had invited him into the dance.

* * *

Natsume wakes with a tear on his cheek and an ache in his heart. He can hear Nyanko- _sensei_ snoring to his left, the soft hum as Touko moves through the kitchen. He brushes the tear away as he sits up, unsurprised to see a girl sitting in his window. Her hair flutters despite the window being closed, and she has her face tilted towards the sun, her dress is the same colour as the light streaming through the window. She’s relaxed, her eyes closed and looks perfectly content.

“I got lost,” she says softly. “I forgot...who I was, where I was supposed to go. They told me there was a boy, in a forest a far way away who could help, who could give me back my name.” She turns to him, then, and Natsume sucks in a breath when he sees the orchid violet of her eyes, the faint freckles spotted across her nose like seeds falling through the garden. “You don’t have it though, do you?”

“No,” he whispers. “But I remember.”

She smiles fully and asks, with laughter in her breath and joy in her heart reminiscent of a dance from many years ago, “What is my name?”

“ _Kaori_.”

The spirit disappears in a flash, soft lights falling across the room and brushing across Natsume’s cheek. Madara finally stirs and immediately pounces on his chest, beating at him with round paws that do as much damage as a pillow.

“You gave back another name?!”

Natsume laughs and falls back onto the bed, covering his face with his hands. Despite not using any spiritual energy to free Kaori - she wasn’t bound to him or his grandmother - he feels more drained than usual, more lonely and tired than he has felt in a long time. Madara must sense something because he stops spattering and instead sits on his lap, blinking quietly. “What did you get yourself into this time?”

***

Taki and Tanuma come with him to visit the grave. Madara talked him into it, and inviting them. It’s a simple headstone, cracked and chipped as all things are in this part of the neighbourhood are. A short inscription - _A kind soul_ \- but it’s the flowers sprouting out of the dirt that make him break down. Small and purple, growing in a place that doesn’t have nearly enough light, stretching towards the sun. Taki and Tanuma fold their arms over him, clutching him as tightly as they can as he cries, pressing their warmth into him. With their hugs comes the light and the laughter and the memories as he comes back to himself, readjusts to being in the proper time again.

They make a picnic in the meadow grass, and he finds himself telling them everything, about the orphanage, the dance. He even tells them about everything that happened afterwards, how bad it got, and they listen, they stay steady, even in the face of stories that make him want to crawl right back into that circle, memories that make him wish he has never woken up from that enchantment. As he talks, Tanuma takes his hand, lightly brushing his thumb over Natsume’s in a small pattern that helps calm his heart. Taki pulls out a pen and doodles above his ear, a small flower stalk that sprouts from the thin scar.

"Why did she come look for you?" Taki asks softly, once Natsume had exhausted his voice and his tears.

Madara picks at his teeth with a dango stick. "Natsume disrupted a powerful magic when he broke the circle." The three human children tilt their heads in confusion and he sighs, as if he were upset that they didn't even understand something as basic as this. "Circles of spirits are incredibly powerful spells - so powerful that their magic can stretch across continents if done right. They're one of the few things that yokai from even opposite parts of the planet have in common."

"What are they for?" Tanuma asks, his hand resting in the grass, still holding tightly onto Natsume's.

Madara hums, rolling off his back. "Most are for the forests, to revitalise them and renew the life that makes it up."

"Why was Kaori the only one so badly affected when the circle broke?" Natsume asks hoarsely.

"Was she?" Madara says, and Natsume feels his heart sink. "What if she was the only on who found you? She might have been worse off because she was in the middle - her dancing was what was chanelling the magic of the circle into the forest itself, but I doubt the other yokai escaped the consequences completely."

Natsume swallows, burrying his face in his knees.

He hears Madara walk over to him and looks up to see the fat cat frowning. "No more moping," Madara says sharply. "Those yokai knew what the risks were when they invited a human - never mind a human _c_ _hild_ into the ring. It was a choice they made. You didn't do anything to them. Besides," he says suddenly. He gestures with a paw at the line of trees sitting behind them. "The forest is still standing. The trees are still growing, the flowers are still blooming. And they'll bloom tomorrow too."

Tomorrow is a tremendous thing.

It is unpredictable and unknown and deadly. A road that can lead into the dark or a ring of mushrooms in another world. It is a promise, of more, of something different. Tomorrow you’ll see a different sun. Tomorrow you’ll hear a different birdsong. Tomorrow there will be more pain. There will be more fear.

But, tomorrow there might be a smile. There might be more laughter. There might even be a hug from a friend. There might be a flower, growing where it shouldn’t, in shadow of a grave.

Natsume is still afraid, of his memories and the time it will take for him to heal from them. But, he is hopeful too. He is no longer the lonely boy abandoned in an orphanage. He has friends, and the beginnings of a new family. He had people that could catch him when he fell into the depths of his thoughts and pull him out, remind him that the sun would still rise tomorrow, that the dark moments wouldn’t last.

Natsume lifts his head, looking down at the grave, and smiles even though he can't see the flowers any more. The knowledge that they would still be able to bloom was enough for him.

Tomorrow was a tremendous thing, yes, but he would be ready to meet it.


End file.
